This Day in 1913 in The Record: Jan. 6, 1913

Monday, Jan. 6, 1913. "Any man employed in Albany, and as a matter of truth in any capacity whatever, providing he is endowed with ordinary perception, cannot help but discover from time to time the change in the trend of events," The Record reports.

By "Albany," our Albany correspondent means the state government, where "every year brings a new order of things. There is no doubt as to the accuracy of the premise as practically every attaché of the [Capitol] from the governor down to the orderlies grant that every twelve months shows some slight advance towards what is supposed to be a representative form of government."

1913 promises more significant changes. In the aftermath of the Progressive uprising in the 1912 elections, there are calls from every quarter for less partisanship in politics. In 1913, "partisanship" means, above all, "a garnering in of the spoils," the idea that elected officials have both a right and an obligation to reward loyal members of their parties with lucrative political jobs.

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Our correspondent detects a new tone in Lieutenant Governor Martin H. Glynn's remark that "outside of the Senate chamber, the members of the Democratic Party were strict partisans, but in the onyx hall they were sworn servants of the whole people." Our writer doesn't think this is the usual "political trickery." His sense is that both Glynn and the new governor, William Sulzer, understand that old-school partisanship is "dangerous and nothing to hold up as to why people should support a candidate for office."

Sulzer, a Democrat, "hasn't espoused partisanship [and] has avoided anything that would suggest obnoxious views of this character. Fitness and honesty have been his cry, and it, too, has sounded good, but it will sound better if he makes good."

A new attitude toward partisanship comes with an impending shift in the balance of power within the parties themselves. Most politicians believe that direct party primaries are inevitable, and that primaries will strip old-school party bosses of their power to dictate both who'll run for office and who'll get the "spoils" if the candidate wins.

"Thus it comes straight down to the bedrock that men in public life to-day are afraid to be too drastically partisan," our reporter notes, "They know that either one of the party organizations gave them their nominations and they feel that they owe their respective parties something, but they carefully avoid being accused of being spoilsmen."

Could all this mean the end of parties themselves? "There will always be two dominant forces in the country," our writer answers, "but there is a distinction between forces and parties."